


Narry NaNoWriMo Drabbles

by theswearingkind



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-09
Updated: 2018-03-09
Packaged: 2019-03-28 22:03:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 3,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13913073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theswearingkind/pseuds/theswearingkind
Summary: For NaNoWriMo 2017, I challenged myself to write a Narry drabble every day.  I did not succeed!  But here's what I've got.





	1. day one: any old place i hang my hat

"You're just so handsome," Harry says into his ear, his voice a warm rumble from wherever he is tonight, a few timezones away. "It's quite unfair, really - I try to focus on other things for a while and then there you are, all lovely."

Niall feels the corners of his mouth tip up. Oh, Harry. "Which is it, mate? 'm I lovely or handsome? Don't reckon I can be both."

"Sure you can," Harry says, and his voice has taken on that mildly betrayed tone he gets sometimes when he's pretending to be worked up over something but sort of means it, too. "You can be lots of things at once. You can be everything."


	2. day two: kiss with a fist

You liked Louis first, actually, in the way you always seem to like people who aren't quite as nice to you as you are to them. He was older, sharp, a bit snappish; you liked him, that's all, thought it'd be a laugh to have him be mean to you sometimes. Fun, because Louis's kind of a mean person generally, but it's not like he's being mean to you, specifically.

It's different with Harry, different when it's a nice person who decides to be mean. Or doesn't decide, just is sometimes, for no reason, in between long stretches of being perfectly sweet. You like Harry second, like him more, and it's not fun.


	3. day three: always knew that you'd cut me someday

Expecting it should make it easier when it comes, Niall reckons. If he knows it's going to happen - or figures it will, at least, even if he knows he won't - doesn't quite believe it even now, really - 

He's a drifter, Harry is, between places and thoughts and people most of all, never quite settling in, never quite letting anyone else get settled, either. It won't be an upending, a rupture - just a widening, slow enough but steady on 'til the space gets too big to try to fill again. It's not like Niall doesn't know.

Niall waits for it. Tries to hold on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from LP's "switchblade," an excellent narry heartbreak song


	4. day four: not knowing what it was

"We shouldn't, though," Harry says, like you're part-way through the conversation already rather than half-asleep, tucked up too tight in your double bed, the sound of Bobby moving around downstairs a faint soundtrack to your night. "Like, not if we're going to do this for real. Be a band and all."

You don't say anything, letting the silence stretch out until he nudges your toes with his. "Niall," he says, reproachful. "You're not asleep."

"Nah," you say at last. "Reckon you're right." You know what he's talking about.

Years later, he'll say he wants to leave, and for a second you'll let yourself think it might still mean - this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from ed sheeran's "perfect," a song i am embarrassed to be so emotional about


	5. day five: waking

"Can I?" Niall hears Harry ask, voice shaking above him. "Can - are you - ?"

"Yeah," Niall gasps. "Yeah, you - you can, just - slow, okay?" He swallows hard, feels the muscles in his throat constrict and release again. Christ, that's - it feels - 

He forces his eyes open then, blinking once, twice, three times quick in a row. It's dawn in the room, no reason he should be - dazzled, or whatever it is.

Harry's lip has gone white where his teeth are bitten hard into it. His voice shakes again as he repeats, "Slow, yeah, slow." Not like it's an agreement. Like it's a reminder.


	6. day six: ten years ago the world was a different place

"What are you doing, Haz?" Niall asks. His voice sounds flat, measured. Like he'd practiced.

Harry almost doesn't react. Almost. "What d'you mean?"

"You know what I mean." He stares at Harry. "Why are you acting like this?"

Harry's jaw tenses - just a bit, just enough that Niall can tell he's put off. He wasn't supposed to bring it up, he guesses.

"Are you - what, teasing me? Making fun of me?"

Something flickers in Harry's face at that. "I wouldn't do that," he says, voice suddenly emphatic even as his face stays mostly impassive.

"What then?" Niall looks at his hands. "You can't - you gotta help me out here, Haz, I - you know I'm not gonna be able to get over it on my own. You can't - you can't _act_ like this when I'm finally getting better."

"Better," Harry says, and his voice has gone back to - nothing. Flat, like Niall's was. "Right."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i watched a lot of old hollyoaks clips in november, it was a time


	7. day seven: like apple pie, like the fourth of july

The boy across the hall has a pretty smile.

That's the first thing Niall really notices about him, after weeks spent barely making eye contact when they pass in the stairway. He's not exactly good-looking, something about his face not quite slotting together, but when he smiles, it just - works, like a key fitting a lock. It's not until he happens to glance up while the elevator doors slide open, the boy laughing at something on his phone, that he really gets it.

He's got a face Niall wants to look at twice, is the thing. He's arresting.

 _H.Styles_ , says the little plate outside his door. Niall wonders what it stands for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from megan joy's "boy next door"


	8. day eight: to leave and to be left

Harry's always been able to turn a blank face on with the best of them, but it's different to be on the receiving end of it - like he's some journo asking them the same questions they've been asked a million times before, a billion. Niall had always kind of envied it, resented that he couldn't manage it himself.

It doesn't even make sense now. Harry's the one asking him a question, not the other way 'round, and anyway he definitely hasn't gotten this one before.

"Well?" Harry repeats at last. "Do you reckon you're ever going to forgive me?"

Niall'd meant to, eventually. Never thought that he wouldn't.


	9. day twelve: and i keep hitting repeat-peat-peat-peat-peat-peat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> eta: this chapter contains an ableist slur. please protect yourself when reading.

"Didn't know you two knew each other," Harry says, glancing back and forth between Niall and Nick, expression open and curious. There's no insinuation in his tone, Niall doesn't think.

He must leave the question floating there a minute too long because Nick clears his throat and says, a little vague, "Yeah, we met at a party a while back. Got to talking about music and, uh, here we are."

 _Here we are_ , Niall thinks. _Here we are, where I just sucked your cock in the bathroom, and the first boy I ever loved was apparently standing outside while it happened._

"Music, huh?" Harry's friend says, smirking, his eyes alcohol-blurred. "That's fucking lame, you shoulda been comparing notes on what it's like to fuck Gomez."

"Hey," Niall says, sharp, overlapping with Nick's low, dangerous, "Excuse me?" and Harry's, "Hey, mate, that's bang out of order."

The guy holds up his palms in surrender, but the smirk hasn't gone anywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did not know that niall and nick jonas were actually friends when i wrote this, but it pleases me that the very elaborate headcanons i formed about their fictional relationship have a flimsy basis in "fact"
> 
> title from selena gomez's "love you like a love song," which is an all-time banger


	10. day eighteen: like love actually, actually

"So, uh, this is m'place," Niall says, fumbling the keys into the little bowl by the door. He takes a quick, calming breath before he turns around.

The guy is looking around politely, hands tucked into the pockets of his posh coat. "S'nice."

Niall doesn't snort, but only because he doesn't want to look like even more of a daft prick in front of this guy than he has already. He keeps the place tidy enough, but it's a bit of a stretch to call it nice. "Thanks," he says instead, keeping it brief. Maybe it'll make up for all of the babbling he did before, Jesus.

"Can I get a drink?" the guy asks. "Just water?"

When Niall comes back, the guy has taken off his coat, and he's wearing - Niall supposes it's called a blouse, technically, the kind of thing a bird might wear to work. Only this one is made of some filmy, see-through fabric that probably wouldn't be office-appropriate, and also - Niall swallows - the guy has it unbuttoned down to his navel, Christ. Niall can see glimpses of tattoos all over his chest.

Niall takes a sip of water to wet his suddenly dry mouth.

"Did you just sip my water?" the guy asks, and Niall glances down at the glass in his hand, betrayed.

"Shit," he says.

The guy breaks abruptly into a wide, kind smile. "Don't worry about it," he says cheerfully. "Guess we're gonna be swapping more fluids than that, yeah?"


	11. day nineteen: non-transferable skills

"So."

Niall clutches the sheet. He's - drawn it up over his chest, for some reason. Ridiculous. He doesn't un-clutch it.

"You, uh - you said that you'd done that before?"

"Yep," Niall croaks. His voice comes out scratchy, which is - stupid. He hadn't - used his mouth, or anything like that, there's no reason his voice would be hoarse. God knows he hadn't been shouting. 

"It was - " There's a painfully long pause. "It was okay, right?"

Niall resists the urge to turn his head. He doesn't want to look at Harry, stretched out beside him, right where Niall had imagined him being for - fuck, for such a long time, longer than he'd ever admit, and have to lie.

Of course, he doesn't want to tell the truth, either. God, it was - 

"Niall?" Harry's voice sounds odd, Niall thinks. Well, why wouldn't it, after - that.

He clears his throat. "Yeah, Haz. It was - it was fine." His voice goes up at the end, like a question.


	12. day twelve: an inconvenient match

"We could - if you would marry her now, I would not stand in your way."

Styles stares at him. "I do not take your meaning, I am afraid."

Niall feels his cheeks warm. Will the man make him say it flat-out? "If you wish it, I would - I would step aside."

"I am married to _you_ ," Styles says slowly, as though Niall might have forgotten. "And I don't think Miss...that is, Mrs. S-- would take kindly to the thought of becoming a mistress."

Niall's cheeks, already warm, flame. "I was not suggesting _that_."

"Then what on earth - "

"Divorce!" he almost shouts, and Styles falls abruptly silent. He looks stunned, like he had when Niall had first greeted him on his return. "I meant that you and I could divorce, and you could be free to marry Mrs. S-- at last." He swallows, and forces himself to add, "As you should have been able to do back then."


	13. day thirteen: tricks of the light

Sometimes he's just overwhelmed by it, how good-looking Harry can be, even when he hasn't taken a shower in four days or bothered to put on anything nicer than a pair of torn-up trackies and a gross old jumper.

Other times he doesn't feel it at all - looks at Harry's face and sees the oddness of its strange, wide angles, the way the pieces don't hang together quite right, and he wonders why he ever started looking the first place. Zayn's beautiful, Liam too - even Louis's got that quicksilver face that's probably objectively better put-together. 

What's the point in feeling like this, in being so endlessly, stupidly fascinated, when he's only half worth looking at, only half?


	14. day twenty-four: the traveler returns

"Come off it, Styles," Payne says to him, laughing. "You're well caught."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," Harry replies, sulking.

Liam just laughs again. He's always laughing. Whatever there is to laugh about all the time, Harry can't imagine. "Oh, certainly not. You just have an unreasonable hatred for that potted plant, which is why you've been scowling at it for the last quarter-hour. It has nothing to do with Mr. Breslin's presence in that area of the room."

Harry grits his teeth. "I have no objection to Mr. Breslin's presence in that corner of the room nor any other."

Liam quirks an eyebrow. "No? No objections to his company?"

"None."

"Only to whom he chooses to _engage_ in said company."

Damn the man, Harry thinks. How someone so good-natured should be so well able to needle him is insupportable. 

Across the room, Mr. Breslin leans every inch of his not-inconsiderable height closer to Niall, who laughs at something the other man says. His throat tips back, displaying the long line of pale skin disappearing into his collar. 

The sharp points of the cut-glass punch-glass sting painfully into Harry's palm, and he forces himself to loosen his suddenly tight grip.

"They're just talking," Payne says then, his voice far gentler than it had been mere moments before. "Harry. They're just talking."

"I see that," Harry manages. _But what about the last few years,_ he doesn't say, _when he was there and I was not_.


	15. day fifteen: party of one

"Is it still weird being up there on your own?" the interviewer asks, just like a hundred other interviewers before, and Niall feels the weariness settled in his bones like a too-heavy blanket.

 _Yes_ , he doesn't say. It's weird every single time, but weird isn't bad, is it, weird can be great, weird can be what you need to get you going again when normal went bad. It was weird to be in a venue where he could see the back row, and it was so good, too. It's always weird, and it's almost always good.

 _How am I on my own when you won't stop mentioning him - them,_ he doesn't say. _How will I ever get to be on my own._


	16. day twenty-four: an inconvenient match, part ii

"What are you accusing me of?" Niall asks evenly, opening a decanter and pouring out a splash of claret. He drinks it in a long swallow before he continues. "I can hardly keep track of all my sins at this point."

Harry feels his cheeks flush. "Your behavior with Mr. Breslin," he begins, but Niall cuts him off.

" _My_ behavior?" he says, incredulous. "My closest friends returns from a years-long sojourn abroad and my husband can't be arsed to make the slightest overture of welcome - "

"Perhaps if you treated him more like a friend and less like a would-be suitor - "

Niall stares at that, open-mouthed. "What?"

"You heard me," Harry says. "Your impropriety has been beyond belief. You encourage him openly - anyone might think - "

But Harry has no chance to elaborate on what anyone might think. Niall slams the claret glass down on the table, hard enough that Harry is surprised it doesn't shatter, then turns and leaves.


	17. day seventeen: check it out now

"Ding ding ding, we have a winner!" Brad says gleefully, staring past Niall toward the main staircase. Niall feels another brick drop on top of the fortress of dread built up in stomach. He turns around.

"No," he says immediately. "No, man, c'mon."

"Styles it is," Brad crows, undaunted. "You should be thanking me, Niall - he's not half-bad looking, is he, really?"

"Like that's the issues here!" Niall says. "He's - you know, he's - "

"Odd? Bit touched in the head? Really fucking weird?"

"Well, yeah."

"Well, yeah," Brad mimics, "yeah, I reckon that's why I picked him."

Niall looks back over at the stairs, where Harry is currently standing stock-still, seemingly oblivious that he's blocking the flow of foot traffic, staring vacantly at - one of the recycling bins? And his shirt, Christ. It sears Niall's retinas.

"Weren't you two friends back in school, though, yeah?" Brad continues. "Probably won't even seem suspicious to him you start hanging around around - not that anything would really seem suspicious to that fucking nutbag - "

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "she's all that" au, obvi
> 
> title from fatboy slim's "funk soul brother," the song playing in the iconic "she's all that" prom scene, also obvi


	18. day eighteen: guess we had an expiration date

"How was the show last night?" Harry asks then. Niall hears a pot clang in the background, the sound of water running. He hadn't realized Harry was back in L.A., but he must be if he's calling Niall while he's doing the dishes.

"Eh," he says. "Not one of the best. Nothing but fucking phones everywhere, kinda put me in a mood. Did me best, but - "

"Sorry, mate."

Niall shrugs. "S'not a big deal. They're not all gonna be amazing. And Gav tore it up, they loved him, so that's good."

"Right," Harry answers. His voice sounds a stiff all of a sudden, not quite matching the easy tone he'd had before. "How, uh - how many more dates is he out with you?"

Niall frowns. "End of the tour. Don't know the number off the top of me head."

"Right," Harry says again. "Right, that's good."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from gavin james's "nervous"


	19. day nineteen: to think what was never thought before

He snaps the laptop shut. Fuck, if he has to read one more quote about how he hasn't changed at all - 

He's proud that he hasn't lost the essentials, he is, but that doesn't mean he's the same. He'd been to six continents before his twentieth birthday. He has enough money to never work another day in his life. He get things just by existing; he tries to deserve them, but he doesn't have to, really, because he'd still get them. Even if he never takes advantage of that, he can't - he can't be the same when it's still true.

 _Why's this bothering me_ , he thinks. _Why's this bothering me now_.

Outside the room, there's a sharp shout of laughter that draws his eye. Louis is doubled over, holding his stomach, while Harry stares up at him from the ground, smiling like this is where he'd meant to be all along, his long limbs splayed across the grass in a graceless sprawl.

 _Gets me overwhelmed_ , Niall thinks, unbidden.

How can anyone say he's the same when all he has to do is look at Harry - 

He'd never imagined it before, and now it's all he thinks about. That's a change.


	20. day twenty: you know, i never was

_And now I reach the difficult news, my dear - I hope you will forgive me for delaying thus long, but I could not think how to say it before, so I must simply say it plain._

_Niall is married._

The words swim in front of Harry's eyes for a moment. He blinks, but when he re-focuses, they have not changed.

_Niall is married. I know this must come as quite a shock to you - indeed we were all shocked -_

_The Family R-- visited the neighborhood again this year, though as you know it is not their year, and we had all thought they were for the Continent. Apparently Mr. R-- had some dealing that could not be so easily managed from afar, and his man of business had recently married and moved to a new county, so they remained in England and decided to spend their summer here. Mrs. R--'s nephew (her sister's second-eldest son) came with them, and they had not been settled above a week before one could observe a very marked partiality on the young man's behalf. Still, no one gave it much thought, for the young man is not set for much, and Niall of course has always known his duty to his family only too well, and while he is the very best of young men, he had so very little (beyond his own estimable qualities) to tempt one without fortune! All told it seemed quite an innocent flirtation -_

_And then we discovered they were gone to Gretna. (We feared at first that it was worse - that they were not gone to Greta - but we have the news directly from the papers now, so that least there is not that to be sorry of!)_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am daily tormented by my inability to find regency fic for this pairing, so i wrote a bunch of snippets of it


	21. day twenty-four: be it a false one, i know

He doesn't know about it, is the thing. How on earth he managed to get in front a fucking TV camera without knowing about it will remain a mystery to the ages, but he didn't know.

So when the interviewer brings up the pictures and asks if he's got any comment, he's totally blindsided, his stupid, traitorous heart writ large across his face.

Maybe it's to his credit that he never even thinks of pretending it's not him. He could, probably - it doesn't show his face, just his forearms and the top of his head. It's an old photo. He's gotten new tattoos since then, covering up the edges of the ones he had at the time, just barely visible in the photo; even he wouldn't know it was him for sure. It could be any bloke, really.

Any bloke at all, but - a bloke, a definitely. And definitely Niall, there with him.

It's not incriminating, not exactly. No one's got their cock out, no one's doing anything particularly suggestive. They've not got shirts on, but there are enough photos like that out there already. It's just - intimate, is all, the light unmistakably the light of early morning, the edge of the bed unmistakably in frame. The way Niall's fingers curl tightly around Harry's forearm like an anchor, the look on Niall's sleep-creased face impossibly, endlessly fond, in love.

Not so endlessly, it turns out.

"No comment," Harry manages.

The interview doesn't last long after that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from one direction's "18," obviously, a perfect song that makes me cry on a stunningly regular basis


	22. day twenty-seven: wonder what we would've become

He wakes up shaking, just a little, his skin cold where it peeks out of the blankets. Beside him, Shawn makes a noise and turns closer, edging up to Niall's back.

"You okay, babe?" he mumbles, still half asleep.

"Yeah," Niall manages. "M'fine, just cold."

Shawn wraps an arm around him and plasters the long line of his body against Niall, tossing a leg over him until they're tangled together all over. "Better?" he yawns, already drifting off again.

It is better. Of course it is, Niall thinks, watching the clock tip from one hour to the next. How could this not be better? Shawn is - sweet, and steady, and Niall feels steady himself when he's there. On keel, the lows smoothed over, like he's running at a forever pace. You can't live your whole life on the highs. Niall'd tried, once.

And he loves Shawn. He does. He just - 

He has to miss Harry sometime, he reckons. You can love someone, and you can leave them anyway, and you can even stay away, but he's got to miss him sometime.

Now's as good a time as any.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from little big town's "better man," another excellent narry heartbreak song


	23. day twenty-eight: ha.

Honestly, if Niall weren't the one having to deal with the bloating, and the sore feet, and the puking, and the shits - honestly, if Niall didn't have to deal with any of that, he'd probably be laughing. It's a funny joke, innit. All those rumors, all those years, and now he's knocked up and none of the lads had a single fucking thing to do with it.


End file.
